But there, where I have garnered up my heart,Where either I must live or bear no life;...The fountain from the which my current runsOr else dries up: to be discarded thence,Or keep it as a cistern for foul toadsTo knot and gender in!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

When my lover came to bed,the knot came untied...all by itself.My dress,held up by the strings of a loosened belt,barely stayed on my hips.Friend,that's as much as I know now.When he touched my body,I couldn't at all rememberwho he was,who I was,or how It was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of his enthusiasm, and there are now men,--if indeed... I can speak in the plural number,--more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest of sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Prometheus is action. Hamlet is hesitation. In Prometheus the obstacle is exterior; in Hamlet it is interior. In Prometheus the wi...ll is securely nailed down by nails of brass and cannot get loose; besides, it has by its side two watchers--Force and Power. In Hamlet the will is more tied down yet; it is bound by previous meditation--the endless chain of the undecided. Try to get out of yourself if you can! What a Gordian knot is our reverie. Slavery from within, that is slavery indeed. Scale this enclosure, "to dream!" escape, if you can, from this prison, "to love!" The only dungeon is that which walls conscience in. Prometheus, in order to be free, has but a bronze collar to break and a god to conquer; Hamlet must break and conquer himself. Prometheus can raise himself upright, if he only lifts a mountain; to raise himself up, Hamlet must lift his own thoughts. If Prometheus plucks the vulture from his breast, all is said; Hamlet must tear Hamlet from his breast. Prometheus and Hamlet are two naked livers; from one runs blood, from the other doubt.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that ...undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »